Star Trek Photo Manipulation Archive

For artwork, photomanipulations, and stories related to Star Trek

Forum rules
1.) This is a game, and games are made to be fun. Please do not post any material which may offend others or disrupt the flow of the game.
2.) Communication over comm should be located within brackets [ ]. Out of character or OOC comments should be located within parentheses ( ). Telepathic communications, thoughts, emphasis, and starship names should be italicized.
3. Players are expected to post in-character at least once a week. If there is time needed off, please contact Joshawott, so he can place your character on a leave of absence.
4. Leave posts open-ended for someone else to easily reply to.
5.) HAVE FUN!!!

"Lieutenant Riojj," Dawnter's voice carried through the empty corridor, "Once inside the yacht, how do you intend to proceed? I don't believe I am very caught up on the operation. But that's no one's fault but my own."

The Captain walked alongside his Chief of Operations; sandwiched in between the Vulcan ensign, who decided to speak up in her monotone voice, "I will navigate, obviously."

She turned to face Riojj, awaiting confirmation.

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.

"I've got teams in both shuttlebays, prepping all the other shuttles. Once we get to the yacht, I'll need to get to work on the telemetry link. When we're out there, I'll have to keep a close watch on the link, which means you'll have to monitor the energy output of the anomaly and compensate our shields to withstand its effects. The waves and particles are shifting and changing rapidly, so you'll have to do it fast and do it right, we have almost no margin of error."

Dawnter listened to her instructions and nodded. "Got it, Lieutenant. Anything else I should know?"

There it was, he'd asked the question she had expected. The trio of officers stepped into a turbolift and ordered it to the yacht docking bay. After a moment longer, she took a deep breath and turned to face him, here dark eyes boring into his pale blue, so he knew how serious it was.

"Most likely if our shields drop below thirty percent they won't be able to withstand the chronoton radiation. If that happens all that'll be left of us are little piles of dust."

Joshua braced himself for the answer to his inquiry. Most of his life he had gone about casual less-than-life-threatening missions, that was until the Dominion War. But even then, he was usually safe and sound on the bridge with his Capatain. That changed when he was promoted.

"Then I'd guess we shouldn't let our shields do as such."

He kept a straight face, similar to the Vulcan ajascent. The ride was comparably silent, excluding the light hum of the cart's movement. "Would a transporter beam make it through the interference?"

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.

"Both the Sovereign and the yacht would need to drop shields for that, we'd all be killed. If things go wrong out there, we're on our own."

On that somber note, the turbolift stopped and Riojj stepped out first, giving the other two a moment to realise that this could be their last day alive. With over a dozen moments in her life where she should've died--even a couple where she'd begged for death in order to end pain and torment--Riojj was no stranger to her own mortality. She knew that she would most likely die a horrible, painful death, though in the past she had always though it'd be at the hands of a rape gang or pirate, now it could be for any number of reasons. Vapourised by chronoton radiation may not have sounded appealing, but it'd be quick--over before they could even register the pain.

Climbing into the yacht, she headed for the cockpit and set to work. She heard the other two enter a moment later, but didn't look up as she readied the large shuttle to handle the controls of a dozen others.

As T'Lar and Riojj exited the lift, Dawnter lingered for a brief few seconds allowing the severity of the situation to flow through his mind and register. It was like a click; a different "mode" of Captain Joshua took on. He was now risking his life for his crew along with three hundred other Cardassians.

The Captain followed his fellow officers into the yacht, where he entered his command codes quickly as Zaeryn set up shop. As he worked quietly without communicating with the others, his solemn grimace reflected in the LCARS screen. He quickly added another mask of confidence and found his way to the small station that he was to work.

Simply saying "small" was an understatement when it came to the consoles of a yacht; it's not supposed to be a shuttle. It was made and used for the Captain's enjoyment, not to be utilized as what it was now.

"Ensign, you've got full helm maneuverability, yes?" he asked T'Lar who was casually checking the impulse manifolds on her station.

"Yes, Captain," she replied, and went about her work.

As Zaeryn continued to prepare for launch, Dawnter took a small second to comfort himself; pretending to comfort the Vulcan.

"T'Lar, what would you leave behind if this mission fails? I'm not saying it will... I'm just curious. I don't converse with my junior officers as much as I'd like."

The Ensign abruptly discontinued her work, turning and looking the Captain directly in the eyes. "I have my mother, who is currently on a four-year deep space archeological expedition. I haven't communicated with her in two years seventy-nine days. My father, however, is the Spatial Propulsion professor at the Academy. My two sisters aren't of age to attend the Academy, but plan to do so. I have yet to find a suitable mate for which to marry. I would be leaving behind my family, who would most likely meditate immediately to control their emotions."

It seemed as though that speech was more unexpected than the damn anomaly they were trapped in.

As Zaeryn manned her station, Joshua nodded to T'Lar; signaling her to continue working before he had a chance to reply. He then focused on violet-headed female. "Let's do this," he spoke softly.

The ride wasn't necessarily smooth, but it wasn't navigating a stormy sea. The operation wasn't fully started yet; the other shuttles were waiting for commands as the yacht edged further from the ship's hull.

"We'll be out of the Sovereign's shield wake in a few seconds," he listened to Zaeryn.

Joshua took this time to gander out of the gaping window. The outside space was erratic; stars appearing then reappearing then changing position in a matter of seconds. He knew time couldn't be contorting in other areas of the sector, but it sure did look like it. His thoughts were interrupted as there was a static zap and a small rumble in the yacht. He watched as the wispy lavender energy field slowly lapsed over the hull of the craft; leaving its safe envelopment.

"Status in our own shields, Lieutenant?"

"Holding at 79%."

That was closer to 100 than it was to 30. That was a good sign. Although as nature's need to balance things took over, he received a bad sign.

"There's a build of of chronitons to port. They've slipped right through shields I-"

Déjà vu was associated with time travel, but this wasn't traveling through time that made Dawnter remember the bright white light he experienced before. This light was an explosion; leaving an unconscious and singed Captain on the deck plating.

{Playing as Ensign T'Lar}

"Captain!" the Vulcan exclaimed to the best of her ability. She anchored the yacht to an abrupt stop, and stumbled over her chair to check the vitals of her commanding officer.

She looked up with concealed remorse. "He's dead."

(Don't worry Bry, I have a few temporal tricks up my sleeve. He won't be dead for long.)

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.

"Kez'at," Riojj cursed under her breath (a Boslic expletive for which the only translation was rather repulsive).

All across her board she saw warning indicators light up as all the shuttles took a pounding, chronoton fields intensified and radiation fields burst into existence all around them. Her eyes flicked from one monitor to the next as her mind processed the fact that the Captain was dead not a meter from her--but this wasn't the time to fret about one death, not with over a thousand more eminent if they didn't complete their task.

"Station Ensign," she ordered, her hands dancing over the controls faster than they ever had before.

"But the Captain--" the young Vulcan began, the faintest hint of remorse touching her voice.

"NOW!" Riojj barked.

The flight control officer was obviously startled at the ferocity of her tone, as Riojj glanced over her shoulder at the Vulcan and her eyes bore into her katra. With a slight nod, T'Lar got up from the deck and resumed her station, once again controlling and adjusting their course and speed.

"Ensign, I'm patching the other shuttles navigation systems into your console, they'll react to whatever course you input for the yacht."

An alarm whined at the post Dawnter had been operating. Riojj slipped out of her chair and checked the displays. Their shields had dropped to fifty per cent and continuing to weaken. At their present rate they would hit the cut off point in seventeen minutes.

Stepping over Dawnter's prone form once again, Riojj resumed her station--not for the first time wishing her dataport was still operational, but she'd need time to fix it and recover from the neural shock she'd taken. They were in a bad situation, one that wasn't going to get any better any time soon and would most likely be unable to complete their assignment.

[Sovereign come in, this is Riojj. We've been hit by a chronoton burst. The Captain's dead, shields are compromised and we'll be exposed in just over fifteen minutes. We have to execute this plan now if we're to have any hope of completing it,] she reported, her monotone never wavering, her voice never faltering.

T'Lar realized her emotions had almost surfaced, and quickly masked them once more. There were very few instances when such an event would occur. The only other time she remembered doing so, post-training, was when the Vulcan was still a crewman aboard the USS Bajor. The small vessel had landed on a planet, a small away team searched for a mission crew member. When the lieutenant was found, although mutilated, he grabbed T'Lar by the throat, unaware that he was trying to be rescued. The memory was very vague; almost like a dream. It was a very suppressed memory.

But there was no logic on dwelling on the past or the inevitable. Her Captain was dead, yes, but there was still a mission to be finished.

"Lieutenant. How should we continue?"

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.

The shield monitor wailed again; they were dropping fast. Which meant they would have to get under way now in order to actually see the mission through and save hundreds of lives. Riojj closed her eyes and took a deep breath, centering herself for a second before she gave the order.

When she opened them again, everything was dark, it smelled of mold and industrial chemicals, and she was alone. A rotten floorboard creaked somewhere in the apartment--she wasn't as alone as she'd hoped.

"Mama?" her whisper was consumed by the darkness around her.

The creaking stopped, followed by a muffled shuffle. The door banged open, the dim lighting from the street all but obscured by the beast in the doorway. "I'm not your mother," the man said in Orion, she could hear the savage smile in the way he spoke.

Fear clenched Zaeryn's chest, panic filled her mind as he stepped into the room, his foul body odour assaulting her nose and making her eyes water.

No! The Sovereign needs me! The thought flashed through terror, confusing the eight years old, as the Orion loomed over her.

"NO!" she screamed, pulling back from him--and fell off her seat onto the deck of the yacht, bile rising in her throat and tears streaming down her cheeks.

(Sorry for not replying sooner! Business of the upcoming school year hit me square in the face. Hopefully this makes up for it.)

{Playing as Ensign T'Lar}

One second, the Vulcan was tapping fervently away at the helm. The next she was in her personal quarters on Vulcan; she was at home. She sat on her calves in front of a candle, hands at her sides in meditation. Oddly, her new surroundings calmed the suppressed emotions buried within her. It made her forget about the death of her Captain. About the seeming impending demise of her first an only deep space assignment.

But then, she was slapped with reality as the chronitons left her brain.

To her surprise, there were now two bodies on the deck. The Boslic gyrated as tears flooded the surrounding plating. She rushed to the Lieutenant and grabbed her by the shoulders, attempting to lock eye contact. She wasn't dead; not anywhere close, but she appeared to be in shock. And then there was one.

"I'm trying to reroute power from thrusters to shields, but we will have to be careful at impulse," she spoke to herself with no emphasis, attempting to retain her sanity as the temporal energy plagued her consciousness. She tapped her combadge after jumping to the ops station, managing shield output with the energy she just made available.

[Ensign T'Lar to Sovereign. We have another wounded. I think our work is complete. We should be able to, and I quote, 'wiggle our way out.' Contact the Cardassians, tell them to modulate their shields to the frequency I am transmitting to you. I am heading back to the saucer. Prepare for reattachment sequence.]

As she whipped her head to the helm station, monitoring the systems from afar, something caught her in the corner of her eye. The Captain's chest... Rose? Was it movement? Was it the small sliver of hope she concealed putting imagery into her head? She ignored it and returned to adjusting the impulse engines for maximum efficiency.

But now it wasn't a trick of her mind. The recently diseased man sprang to life with a raspy gasp; eyes opening to maximum width and jaw dropped to the floor. His eyes fluttered and his arms flailed, screaming for survival and grabbing onto the Ensign's trousers. "Captain!" She spurted, falling to her knees with tricorder in hand.

"You're... You're alright," she explained absorbing the information the device spewed out. "I don't see how this is possible!" she spoke with inquiry. "You are going to be fine, Captain. Just try to breathe."

Once again, after remanning the helm, she activated her badge. [T'Lar to Sovereign. The Captain is alive. I suggest a temporal trick. He's delirious. I advise the immediate transport to sickbay after we have reattached to the saucer.]

T'Lar gazed into the vastness of space as the shuttle clanked against the ship, the magnetic constrictors beginning to lock in place. [Sickbay, now.] Almost immediately, the three bodies materialized in front of the Bajoran.

(Her we go, Alyssa )

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.